As APA works to implement its new strategic priorities, APA Div. 13 (Society of Consulting Psychology; SCP) has been integral in helping guide the way. Members of Div. 13 and Div. 14 (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology) participate on APA’s new Change Management Advisory Group, which is offering expertise on tools and strategies the association can use to push forward the transformational change needed to advance the APA strategic planopens in new window adopted by the Council of Representatives earlier this year. “It is a wonderful example of the brain trust we have in APA and the progress we can make when we draw upon our members’ expertise,” says APA Chief Executive Officer Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD.
Div. 13 was formed in 1924 as a home for APA members who worked as applied psychologists and consultants outside of academic and scientific circles. With close to 1,000 members, SCP serves as an information and referral network, says SCP President Bill Berman, PhD. The division offers members guidance and resources tailored for consultants, including webinars, on-demand training, an annual conference, a listserv and opportunities for mentoring and leadership development. Members receive a newsletter and the division’s quarterly publication, Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research.
Former Div. 13 president Amy Owen Nieberding, PhD, credits the mentoring she received from senior division members for jump-starting her consulting career. Today, as a consultant for Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, she still meets regularly with an informal SCP peer-coaching group—“a huge asset” for discussing difficult work issues, she says.
Carolyn Humphrey, PhD, owner of the Consulting Psychology Group in Charlotte, North Carolina, says she’s “professionally grown up with the division.” She joined as a student in 1999 and is now an SCP board member. Feedback and mentoring relationships are as critical as experience in becoming a consultant, she says. “Having Div. 13 as a home base helps me talk work issues through and allows me to be courageous in my work.”
